When you read about a Brazilian player being greeted by thousands of fans at an airport in Saudi Arabia before setting off in a Rolls-Royce to dine with members of the royal family, Neymar, the new Saudi Al-Hilal player, will immediately come to mind. However, it turns out that the Brazilian Rivelino, who joined Al Hilal itself under a lucrative contract in 1978, almost on the same day, but 45 years before Neymar, is his counterpart at the head of the Seleçao these days.
“In addition to a new Mercedes-Benz and a living allowance of $10,000 a month,” the Washington Post wrote at the time, “Rivellino will be staying in one of the empty mansions of Prince Khaled Al Saud.”
Similar luxuries, at larger sums at current prices, have been lavished on Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and other superstars who joined the Saudi Professional League this year. Transfer fees this summer alone amounted to $830m, not counting exorbitant player wages, or Ronaldo’s signing in January of a contract that is said to net him €400m over two and a half years.
Spending suddenly of this magnitude and speed is unusual in football, and dwarfed by other sporadic Saudi acquisitions such as Rivelino, legendary Brazilian coach Mario Zagallo, Italian Roberto Donadoni and Bulgarian Hristo Stoichkov over the years.
This Saudi outburst is more than a prestige-seeking or “sports whitewashing” of the country’s much-criticized human rights record, it is more about an existential impulse: reshaping the economy before oil revenues drop.
“This project is part of a transformation project that takes this country to where it wants to go,” newly appointed Douri chief of operations Carlo Nohra told AFP.
“This is completely different.”
And if Saudi Arabia, the largest oil exporter in the world, is not new to spending heavily on football players, things are completely different this time.
The current football project is part of Vision 2030, the ambitious campaign led by the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to diversify the oil-dependent Saudi economy.
“There was a tendency to bring in big names” in the 1970s, deputy editor-in-chief of the prominent Al-Riyadiah newspaper, Saleh Al-Khalif, told AFP.
And he continued from his office in Riyadh, “Revo (Rivellino) and other players came from Tunisia and played well in the 1978 World Cup. But the experiment was a failure in the end.”
“It depended on honorary members of the clubs, not on a plan or government spending,” he added, referring to the royal family members who fund the teams independently.
He explained that the first phase “was not sustainable, so it could not succeed. This is completely different from the current experience.”
Currently, Saudi Arabia is investing hundreds of billions in everything from Neom, the futuristic new city on the Red Sea coast, to tourist resorts and entertainment for the masses, including football.
The plan aims to diversify sources of income in the desert country of 32 million people, and where two-thirds of the Saudi population is under 30 years old, but time is of the essence.
OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries of which Saudi Arabia is a leading member, predicted that global consumption would peak around 2040, implying that revenues would decline after that.
Simon Chadwick, a lecturer in sports and geopolitical economics at the Schema Business School in Paris, said, “Saudi Arabia is racing against time.”
“Saudi Arabia has 20 years to diversify. In the meantime, they are vulnerable to the volatility of oil prices,” he told AFP.
“They have to move quickly, they have to move strategically, they have to move effectively,” he added.
“Bread and Circus”
The packed crowds that turn out to watch Ronaldo are a major turnaround for a deeply conservative country where women were banned from stadiums until 2019.
“The cynics will say what are the reasons behind this,” said Ali Khaled, the sports editor of the English-language newspaper “Arab News” in Riyadh, referring to the talk about “sports washing.”
“But it’s just that they (Saudi officials) bring this to their people who for a long time did not have access to any entertainment of this level.”
According to Nohra, “The main goal is how can we transform sports into a sport that inspires, engages and entertains the Saudi people.” “This is the engine,” he stressed.
But Chadwick points out that investments in football, Formula One, golf, music festivals and more may do more than encourage people to spend. “I think the security of the ruling family is at the heart of this,” he said.
He continued, “Investing in football is the bread and circus of the twenty-first century,” referring to the policy of providing food and entertainment at the same time, explaining that it is like “giving people what they want, and hoping that they will leave you alone.”
He concluded by saying, “They will not ask you, but they will support you.”
2023-08-25 05:18:10
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